PrintFebruary 8, 2007
Hillary vs. CalPERS & the World
Last week Hillary said she should "take" all of Exxon-Mobil's profits and put it in a special alternative energy fund. Now if this were to happen, many union pension plans would be harmed. Heck, they would be raped. CalPERS lists Exxon-Mobil as its second largest holding, having shares worth $1.784 Billion - with a "B" dollars.
The loss of all profits would throw Exxon-Mobil into a spin, causing its shares to drop to a fraction of their current worth, and probably cause a stock market crash, wiping a large percentage of American's (and foreigners') savings.
Wait a minute. Didn't I see this in a British comedy in the early 1960s? A rich widow decides to sell all of her late husband's stocks to help the poor - and she causes a worldwide financial depression. Even for a comedy, that scene turned it into a grim, black comedy.
Let's see who else's union pension Hillary would bankrupt with the seizure of Exxon-Mobil's profits. TIAA-CREF, which manages pensions for college professors and the general public. If you do an Alta Vista search for "TIAA-CREF Exxon holdings", you get a list of CREF funds having Exxon-Mobil as its largest holding. Its 1010 Teachers' Personal Annuities web page is blank, but the Alta Vista listing shows it as the #1 holding of its Teachers pensions. I had better luck with the TIAA CREF Institutional Growth Fund. Its #1 holding is Exxon-Mobil at 3.75% of its shares held.
TIAA-CREF's Equity Income Fund has, as its largest holding, Exxon-Mobil (again) with 2.76%. TheStreet.com lists TIAA-CREF's aggregate big holdings in all its funds. In this listing, Exxon-Mobil has fallen to #4 with "only" $1.5 billion dollars worth of their stock held by the teachers unions.
Obviously, numerous small individuals own shares of Exxon-Mobil in their index funds. Wait, it is obvious to me, but it must not be obvious to various Hillary supporters who may have been to a focus group before Sen. Clinton chose to unleash her screed against the giant oil company. If you go to Yahoo's Financial page for Exxon, click on Major Holders, you will see that AXA is the fifth largest holder with 6.3 billion worth of the stock. AXA sells annuities and mutual funds and insurance policies to regular folks who don't wear striped pants and top hats like that guy on the cover of the Monopoly game. The largest holder is Barclays Global Investments in the United Kingdom. That would support my earlier argument that investors, both small and large worldwide, would lose their savings if Exxon-Mobil suddenly had no profits and had to essentially cease to exist as a for-profit company.
Could somebody please tell Hillary that not every Democrat has a book deal with a New York publisher to fall back on? And that it takes an Exxon to insure the teachers' and the California government workers' and millions of regular folks' pensions and private retirement investments? I wonder if anyone will say this to Hillary on one of her listening tours.
(Jack Kemp is not the former politician of the same name)
